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Tanukitsune

"Auntie Pixelante" VS. Jim Sterling... MisandryVs. misogyny?

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The literal conversation is right there. I don't see what is out of context about it. I think most of us here agree that both were acting like idiots and neither one of them is in the "right" and neither need defending. Jim Sterling might not be sexist, but he used specific words that are generally used to put women down.

Other than that, I totally agree with you, Hermie.

Absolutely agree with this, and I said as much in my first post. I'm not siding with either one, just discussing his rhetoric and use of the terms.

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This gets very difficult to interpret.

I read a bit of it and it looks like neither is right.

This reminds me of a situation that happened a long time ago. I was playing basketball with a few kids about 3 years younger than me (I was 16). At first everything was fine but as me and a friend started beating them, smack talk became more abundant and more vicious. My friend, simply a calmer and better person, ignored these 13 year olds. They zeroed in on me and started calling me all kinds of names under the sun as a way to fuck with me. Then one kid, from the carribean, started calling me a Fag and a queer. At first I didn't care because, well, I'm not gay. But he pursued it, and it started to bother me, I mean if I were then surely this barrage would have been considered harrasment. It got my blood boiling, how dare this fucker be such a homophobe for the pure purposes of smack talk and putting me off my game? So I returned the favour.

So I pulled the N word on him. Everyone freaked out, what I had said was completely unacceptable, my friend refused to hang out with me for a while because I was clearly a racist. Yet the first afronts, real or otherwise were ignored.

I am not saying that Nigger is acceptable, what I am saying is that we work with the tools we are given. Just because someone is white, middle aged and middle class doesn't mean he is the cause of all the wrongs in the world. And harrassing someone (by making pornographic pictures of them) merits a response.

I don't like Jim Sterling (his written reviews are alright somtimes) but I am uncomfortable at the idea that he can't play the same game as everyone else, even if I look forward to someone putting him in his place.

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There's another layer of context in play.

Edge Magazine asked David Jaffe about the new PSP. He responded:

New hardware is like new pussy. It's exciting at first but after you've experienced enough fresh vagina over the years - while there's still always a bit of excitement when something new comes along - you learn that sooner than later, the new and exciting becomes the standard and dependable and so it's best to just stay focused and [grateful] on what you've got at the moment and if you need to make a change, it'll just happen organically. :innocent:

Jim Sterling blogged about it on Destructoid, and publicly defended this statement (about 3/4 down the page):

I don't think what David Jaffe said was sexist. Crass, sure, but if Dtoid is going to start attacking crass comments, I'll have to get out the hypocrite alarm.

It's not like he said "Women are shit and only good for fucking." He said he likes pussy. I'm willing to bet the majority of the commenters in this thread do as well. Call me naive, but I don't see anything particularly harmful in stating that.

If anything, he basically said the constant desire for more sex with different women is unsatisfying and worthless. I think that's quite a positive message, wrapped up in a harmlessly vulgar way.

Daphny took offense to the attitudes of both men that this was both an appropriate thing to say as a game designer and an appropriate thing to support as a games journalist, briefly inspiring her to create the aforementioned two-tweet-mini-slash-fic which inspired the crudely drawn pr0n. She then aggressively drew attention to herself by @ing both men with a link to the lewd drawing.

She felt that the "pussy" comment and Sterling's defense were misogynistic attacks on her gender, one of many committed by the games industry and press. Sterling felt that the drawing was a personal attack.

I'm not trying to say that this context necessarily provided adequate justification for Daphny's response. I'm just saying that this story didn't start with Daphny's writing.

You can't go to a comedy show with an offensive comedian and laugh at most of his and then get offended and ask for him to get fired when one of his jokes hits home...

Where have they ever said or implied that they approved of his earlier offensive remarks?

It get's worse.... they've created a joke twitter account of JOM STROLING making misogynistic comments... does that sound like something reasonable people do?

Idle Thumbs did this with IGN! :D

(Not limited to misogyny or one author, but still!)

The worst part? ANNA ANTHROPY WON'T LISTEN! Unless you tell "her" Jim deserves to die like the pig he is, she'll treat you as badly as Jim, no matter how calmly and logical you try to be...

Why is "her" in quotes? You can disagree with her views, but are you questioning her chosen gender identity as a rhetorical strategy? Not cool. :shifty:

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There's another layer of context in play.

Edge Magazine asked David Jaffe about the new PSP. He responded:

Jim Sterling blogged about it on Destructoid, and publicly defended this statement (about 3/4 down the page):

Daphny took offense to the attitudes of both men that this was both an appropriate thing to say as a game designer and an appropriate thing to support as a games journalist, briefly inspiring her to create the aforementioned two-tweet-mini-slash-fic which inspired the crudely drawn pr0n. She then aggressively drew attention to herself by @ing both men with a link to the lewd drawing.

She felt that the "pussy" comment and Sterling's defense were misogynistic attacks on her gender, one of many committed by the games industry and press. Sterling felt that the drawing was a personal attack.

I'm not trying to say that this context necessarily provided adequate justification for Daphny's response. I'm just saying that this story didn't start with Daphny's writing.

Where have they ever said or implied that they approved of his earlier offensive remarks?

Idle Thumbs did this with IGN! :D

(Not limited to misogyny or one author, but still!)

Why is "her" in quotes? You can disagree with her views, but are you questioning her chosen gender identity as a rhetorical strategy? Not cool. :shifty:

You do know Anna Anthopy is transgendered, right? I'm not sure what's the proper term to call her... him? She IS a male, I've seen her broadcast live and she/he has a male body... she just thinks she should have been born with a female body...

The person who attacked Jim was following him on Twitter in a "HUR HUR LOOK AT THIS SILLY MAN!" way... she was there for every rude comment Jim made, she was there for the show.. literally... and when the monkey flung poo in her way she got offended...

Speaking of which, JOM STRORLING is now following me on Twitter, and what I assume is the person who created this account is talking to me... At least this person is reasonable...

Maybe Jim deserved the attack, but I think trying to get him fired for retaliating is messed up... You can't start a fight and then complain you got hit and try to get that person arrested and you REALLY can't go and tell web celebs only parts of the story so they'll take your side...

Jim and Daphne are both trolls, Daphne is not allowed to play ANY card of any kind...

Who knows, maybe Jim really is sexist scum, but none of what she did is helping her cause, she's about as effective as PETA...

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Jim and Daphne are both trolls

I think this is the salient point. Also, don't feed them.

I haven't clicked on any of the links in this thread, but after reading everything quoted here I'm going to go with Jim being a misogynist dick, and Anna trying to make that point in a self-defeating way by lowering herself to his level. twmac's story is a good allegory.

Btw, I think a good rule of thumb when referring to transgender people is to go with whatever they identify as. If Anna identifies as a woman, it's proper to refer to her as such, regardless of whether she's pre-op, post-op or whatever.

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Someone taking offense at David Jaffe saying something mildly, borderline sexist? That's worse than taking offense at Penny Arcade for making a rape joke.

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mildly, borderline sexist?

Firstly, it was misogynist (hating women), not sexist (judging one gender to be superior to the other). Secondly, I think it was more than mild. It defines women by their genitals, as nothing more than Fleshlights, and at the same time objectifies them to the level of handheld consoles.

I'm reading it out of context, of course, so I have no idea if Jaffe was being tongue-in-cheek or whatever. But Sterling appears to be taking it on face value and seeing nothing wrong with it, even spinning it to be complimentary and with an underlying moral lesson. (Again, perhaps he's trolling or joking, I have no idea.)

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I think this is the salient point. Also, don't feed them.

I haven't clicked on any of the links in this thread, but after reading everything quoted here I'm going to go with Jim being a misogynist dick, and Anna trying to make that point in a self-defeating way by lowering herself to his level. twmac's story is a good allegory.

Btw, I think a good rule of thumb when referring to transgender people is to go with whatever they identify as. If Anna identifies as a woman, it's proper to refer to her as such, regardless of whether she's pre-op, post-op or whatever.

I don't remember if she's even said how to call her, all I know is that she's said she's transgendered...:blink:

One of the problems of the internet is that you can never tell when someone is joking or putting up a persona...

IMHO, Destructoid, in general, LIKES to be crass, even a bit dick-ish, but I don't think they're actual jerks...

It's hard to know the REAL truth though...

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Offtopic, but in every context I've encountered Anna Anthropy identifies as a woman, so, yeah, she is a she, without quote marks.

Then one kid, from the carribean, started calling me a Fag and a queer. At first I didn't care because, well, I'm not gay. But he pursued it, and it started to bother me, I mean if I were then surely this barrage would have been considered harrasment. It got my blood boiling, how dare this fucker be such a homophobe for the pure purposes of smack talk and putting me off my game? So I returned the favour.

So I pulled the N word on him. Everyone freaked out, what I had said was completely unacceptable, my friend refused to hang out with me for a while because I was clearly a racist. Yet the first afronts, real or otherwise were ignored.

I think this is a useful anecdote, but I think I have a different angle on it.

Homophobia is a crappy thing, and the way smack talk focuses on homophobic abuse is also a crappy thing. And what you were aiming to do was to give an object lesson, along the lines of:

Those are hateful words. When you use them, it's the same kind of shit for gay men as it is for you if somebody N-bombs you. These are words gay men hear just before they get beaten up by bigots. They are words with a whole history of oppression and violence. Show some damn empathy.

But that's not the message he got from being N-bombed. Take Michael Richards - what he wanted to do was to get some hecklers to shut up, and he went for the most forceful tactic he could think of, to get them to shut up, but that didn't result in quiet hecklers. (Incidentally, Tanikitsune, I think that's the answer to your question about whether people can laugh at a comedian's act up to a point, and then stop laughing and take offence. Historically, they can.)

Is a slash story or obscene cartoon about two straight men a useful reprimand for their perceived objectivation of women? Is calling a woman a feminazi, a bitch or a slut, or telling her to get her husband's permission to use the computer a useful response to that? Generally, I'd say that, just like racist abuse isn't a useful tool against homophobia, homophobic abuse isn't a useful tool against misogyny and misogyny isn't a useful tool against homophobia. And I think it gets even trickier if, say, misogynist abuse is being used against a woman on behalf of the fight against homophobia by a straight man or woman.

What was kind of great about it was how quickly everything settled down once Felicia Day got involved. I'm wondering if there is some sort of way to use Felicia Day for good. Like the SETI@home program that crunches numbers for SETI in the spare capacity of your computer - maybe random tweets from Felicia Day's twitter account to people saying "the thing you are doing is making me sad. Please stop." World peace, guys. It is achievable.

Edited by Denial
Typo

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One of the problems of the internet is that you can never tell when someone is joking or putting up a persona...

IMHO, Destructoid, in general, LIKES to be crass, even a bit dick-ish, but I don't think they're actual jerks...

It's hard to know the REAL truth though...

Which is exactly why I've been arguing, if you're going to say something that appears hateful and hurtful to someone, even if you mean it as a joke, then why say it at all?

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"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

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Firstly, it was misogynist (hating women), not sexist (judging one gender to be superior to the other). Secondly, I think it was more than mild. It defines women by their genitals, as nothing more than Fleshlights, and at the same time objectifies them to the level of handheld consoles.

You're right that it was more misogynist than sexist, but this is pretty much what David Jaffe does, he uses powerful, crass imagery to comedic effect. I also don't think his words ring quite the way you describe them. He was using a provocative metaphor to describe something. He's not saying anything about using women as fleshlights and the vibe I get from David Jaffe is that he is by no means a womanhater. For one, his wife would disagree.

Why is this important? Because a person's intent is extremely relevant. It's context. That's why David Jaffe isn't a womanhater. He doesn't feel that women are sex objects, and that wasn't the point of what he said*. But it IS why Jim Sterling and Daphne whateverhernameis are horrible people, because they DID mean all the hurtful, idiotic things they said in their vicious attacks on one another.

(* Obviously I don't know if David Jaffe is a womanhater or what he means or thinks. This is just the vibe that I get from having heard him speak over the years.)

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Totally unrelated to any of these people, but I always find the "he can't be a misogynist - he's married!" argument really odd. I mean, unless he's married to Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organisation for Women. In which case, OK, probably not. But you were lucky.

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As much as I'd like for this thread to die too, but...

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

THIS... is exactly why we are arguing... Some of use believe this is true, but some of this DON'T...

Apparently Mr. Vonnegut has never met anybody with a personality disorder, an expert conman, an actor or... Bruce Wayne...:hah:

THIS is why we are arguing, some of us think Jaffe, Jim or Daphne aren't as horrible as they appear, some of us don't... Arguing won't make them better or worse people...

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THIS... is exactly why we are arguing... Some of use believe this is true, but some of this DON'T...

Apparently Mr. Vonnegut has never met anybody with a personality disorder, an expert conman, an actor or... Bruce Wayne...:hah:

Maybe his other quote will clarify this view a bit more:

"Pretend to be good always, and even God will be fooled."

-Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater

If you act like a piece of shit all the time and make other people feel crap, then, for all intents and purposes, you are a piece of shit, no matter how nice or tolerant you consider yourself to be on the inside.

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THIS is why we are arguing, some of us think Jaffe, Jim or Daphne aren't as horrible as they appear, some of us don't... Arguing won't make them better or worse people...

Except you think Anna's definitely a childish hypocritical troll, right?

I'd like for this thread to die too

WHY DID YOU START IT, THEN?

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Except you think Anna's definitely a childish hypocritical troll, right?

WHY DID YOU START IT, THEN?

No... Anna didn't troll Jim Daphne did, although Anna is the one who tried to get Jim fired, which is the reason I started this thread...

I just wanted to see what people would say when they heard they tried to get someone fired for a flamewar started by the "victim"...

Apparently NOBODY thinks that's important, then only think there all trolls and that they both deserve each other...

Maybe his other quote will clarify this view a bit more:

"Pretend to be good always, and even God will be fooled."

-Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater

If you act like a piece of shit all the time and make other people feel crap, then, for all intents and purposes, you are a piece of shit, no matter how nice or tolerant you consider yourself to be on the inside.

That's basically the same thing.... Except now you're implying Jim is a horrible monster...

This argument is really going in circles... :blink:

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Well, it's still pretty obvious we have very different world views and philosophies on this subject... I don't think any more can be said in the "people are what they seem" VS "people are not always what they seem" debate in this thread....

You're not a pessimist, but I'm WAY more optimistic than you... I said there was hope for 4Chan... If that doesn't make me an optimist, I don't know what will...

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I for one firmly support the contention that Kurt Vonnegut never met Bruce Wayne. If anyone disagrees, they need to proof that shit up.

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Although, now that I think about it, Doctor Strange met Tom Wolfe in his comic. So maybe it's more likely than I think.

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I think the quotes Nappi posted are a bit more subtle than that. It's more of the "if we pretend to be something enough, it will eventually begin to influence who we really are" sort of thing than a "take everyone at face value" sort of thing. I do think this is a very true statement. It's not that it's impossible to be sarcastic, have a character, or be facetious, but more of a warning that if you spend too much time inhabiting said character you will adopt portions of that person as part of who you actually are. This is really something to be cautious of, and something that I think a lot of media personalities fall victim to. From what I've gathered, this Jim guy may be a case of that. Also, this has reminded me that I need to read more Vonnegut, having only read Slaughterhouse Five.

Anyway, I withdraw back to my original position of not knowing who either of these people are and just getting grossed out by both of them while passively reading this thread.

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Also, you shouldn't fault people for assuming you're a jackass if you act like a jackass.

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